DESCRIPTION: (Applicant's Abstract) The goal of this research is to test the hypothesis that "Skills for Adolescence" (SFA), a well-established multicomponent life skills education program, is significantly more effective than "standard" middle or junior high school drug prevention programs. Using a community trial design that allocates schools within 5 metropolitan areas to study conditions, it aims to determine: (1) SFA's effectiveness in preventing or delaying the incidence of smoking, drinking, and substance use, and in reducing their prevalence; (2) whether SFA is equally effective for tobacco, alcohol, and controlled substances; and (3) for students with differing demographic, social, drug-related characteristics; (4) SFA's effectiveness in improving students' drug-related cognitions, affective development, and behavioral skills; (5) mediational effects of any SFA-induced changes in students' drug-related cognitions, affect, and behavioral skills on changes in drug use; (6) mediational effects of SFA program implementation and dosage variables (e.g., teachers' fidelity to content coverage and students' attendance) on changes in students' drug use; and (7) SFA's cost-effectiveness in terms of deterring and delaying drug use and promoting positive cognitive, affective, and behavioral skills outcomes. Identification of effective drug prevention programs is important because: adolescent drug use appeared to stabilize at relatively high rates by 1990, but more recent data point to an upsurge in substance use as early as junior high school; current prevalence rates for teens still exceed Healthy People 2000 Objectives; cigarette, alcohol, and drug use are associated with the leading causes of mortality and morbidity; and the average age at first use of drugs continues to decline, while early initiation can make it harder to quit and lead to more serious negative health consequences. Programs designed to prevent or delay drug use now reach a majority of junior and senior high school students. SFA is one of the largest established programs and while less intensive and comprehensive life skills curricula have been supported in previous research, SFA has not been rigorously evaluated in a comparative, multisite, longitudinal design. The study is intended to fill this gap by comparing schools that will be pair-matched prior to randomization. Sixth graders feeding into SFA and control schools will be assessed before the seventh grade intervention program and followed through the ninth grade to assess the hypothesized differences in drug use, and in drug-related knowledge, attitudes, and perceptions, as well as affective and behavioral skills outcomes.